Guesstimating portions with real-world objects

Typical Portion Control Tips/Guidelines

“Deck of cards, Merlin; deck of cards,” my friend Dennis would always say as we sat down to eat ribeyes the size of kittens.

That terrific, if ignored, heuristic for estimating the desirable 3-ounce portion of beef came back to me this week with all the interest in the USDA’s mypyramid.gov site and the new dietary guidelines.

I’m a big of fan of these kinds of rules of thumb and was pleased to turn up this small collection of real-world portion size guesstimates . Here are a few of my favorites:

• Cooked vegetables – palm of hand
• Grilled Fish – checkbook
• 2 TB butter, etc. – thumb (joint to tip)
• Chopped fruit – tennis ball
• Apple – baseball
• Potato – computer mouse
• Bagel – hockey puck
• Pancake – CD ROM
• Steamed rice – cupcake wrapper
• Cheese – pair of dice
• 1 oz meat – matchbox
• 3 oz meat – bar of soap or deck of cards
• 8 oz meat – thin paperback book

Got any other cool real-world guesstimators?